Posted
by
Soulskill
on Sunday July 25, 2010 @09:46AM
from the cost-of-a-cheap-tux dept.

WesternActor writes "Computers are getting cheaper to buy every year, but there are still sometimes advantages to building them yourself. ExtremeTech has a story about how they sought out the parts for a $200 computer that (of course) runs Linux as a way of breaking the budget barrier. They even test it against a commercially available eMachines nettop to see how it compares in terms of performance. This probably isn't something everyone will want to do, but it's an interesting example of something you can do on the cheap if you put your mind to it."

Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday February 24, 2010 @11:07PM
from the I-know-what-I-know dept.

DallasMay writes "This article describes an experiment that demonstrates that people don't put as much weight on facts as they do their own belief about how the world is supposed to work. From the article: 'In one experiment, Braman queried subjects about something unfamiliar to them: nanotechnology — new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products. "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms," Braman says. The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information. "It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.'"

Me, I'm American in the sense that I view the American people to be my people.

I think it is wrong for some to exploit absolutely artificial differences nation to nation in the cost of the essentials of survival - food, housing, medical care, utilities - by transplanting their manufacturing plants and service centers to those cheaper nations so that they can pay lower wages vis-a-vis America's solely to further enrich themselves faster than they could in America.

That costs America jobs and is bringing great harm to my fellow Americans. Further, I would expect the average citizen of all nations to have precisely the same perspective regarding protecting their fellow countrymen.

But it is not the "average" citizen of any country who is being so tremendously enriched by inequitable free trade, now is it?

I have a difficult time accepting that I should seek to be "among the 10%" and take joy in counting my riches while watching my fellow Americans slide into poverty. I may not be religious, but I still don't believe in abusing my fellow human beings just to satiate my greed.

If you were truly speaking for your "fellow human beings" (instead of your fellow countrymen), and truly detest exploiting the "artificial differences nation to nation", then perhaps you could see it more clearly and simply: those who are willing to work harder gain more, and those enriched by "inequitable free trade" are exactly those at the shorter end of the inequality.
Frankly, although I doubt you're aware of it, the level of hypocrisy displayed in your posts is staggering.